A Trip to the National Gallery

by Vikki Petraitis, Copyright 1995

Today we went to the National Gallery. It was good. We had
fun. The picture I liked best was Weeping Woman because
she reminds me of my mum. After the National Gallery, we
went to the Botanic Gardens for lunch. It was good. Then
we caught the bus back to Langwarrin. Troy McKenzie sang
songs with rude words in them. It was fun.

So much for homework. Today we went to the National
Gallery for what Ms Sposato called a mind extending
experience and then for a further mind extending experience,
we had to write a paragraph about the gallery for homework.
My mind is now fully. That is the thing that I hate most in
this world - going on a great excursion and then having to
write a paragraph on it when you get back. In fact I'm sure
that if I raced into the classroom tomorrow and told Ms
Sposato that I had been taken on a journey by aliens in a
UFO, she would tell me to write a paragraph about it!

We had been looking forward to the gallery for months. Ms
Sposato had told us about lots of different paintings and she
would try to tell us how big they were by comparing them to
things in the classroom. We knew that Weeping Woman was as
big as the art cupboard window and that The Banquet of
Cleopatra was bigger than the blackboard - but we had never
seen any of them.

This morning, we were all so excited that even Troy
McKenzie got to school on time. Troy McKenzie was looking
forward to seeing all the nudes even though Ms Sposato had
warned us that if she caught anyone embarrassing her at the
gallery by laughing at figures with no clothes on, she would
make them sit in front of the painting or statue for the
whole visit so that all the other gallery visitors would
think they were weird. We all made a pact to do our giggling
in the gallery toilets so if anyone heard us, they would
never guess we were giggling about the paintings.

When the big bus arrived at St Maria Goretti's at ten past
nine this morning, we all cheered. We loved excursions. Ms
Sposato had told us all to bring our lunches in plastic bags
and, for a special treat, we were allowed to bring a can of
drink. Everybody piled their lunches into the lunch basket
and Ms Sposato picked me and Mitch Mooney to carry the
overflowing basket to the bus. As soon as we walked around
the corner past the library, Mitch Mooney put down his side
of the basket forcing me to put down mine. He began to look
in everybody's plastic bag to check out what everybody was
having for lunch.

We quickly looked in everybody's plastic bag and found
things like last night's meatloaf and Nicholas Ramsbotthom
had a bag of pickled onions. We laughed as we picked up the
basket and ran for the bus. Everybody was sitting down and we
were the last to hop on. Ms Sposato seated all the dags in
the back because she figured that they wouldn't
misbehave. But everybody knows that there is something
magical about the back seat of a bus that makes even normal
children go wild.

Ms Sposato sat up the front in a single seat just behind
the bus driver. The bus driver looked like every other bus
driver we have had. He was medium height, medium fattness,
with medium hair and a medium face and he completely ignored
all the children and said nice things to Ms Sposato who
sometimes blushed. Bronwyn Bunting's mother, the only
parent who had volunteered for the excursion, sat in the
middle of the bus next to Bronwyn who was smiling proudly -
though I don't know why. Mrs Bunting was no oil painting.

Oh, we loved bus rides. There were so many things you
could do to keep yourself occupied. We jumped up out of our
seats when we went over the speed bumps in the school
driveway. We made rude gestures to truck drivers who made
them right back to us and then we told Ms Sposato who gave
the truck drivers dirty looks. It was great fun.

We sang songs until our voices hurt and then we kept
singing because we knew it made Ms Sposato rub her temples
and tell the bus driver that she would rather be anywhere
else in the world than on a bus with 31 children. The bus
driver nodded sympathetically and said something nice about
Ms Sposato's frock and made her blush. We laughed and kept
singing.

It took an hour to get from Langwarrin to the National
Gallery and we were really glad to get off the bus and stand
still stretching our legs - until we saw the glass window at
the entrance to the gallery. It had a wall of water running
down it. All 31 of us bolted for the window and pressed our
faces and hands against the glass and the water trickled over
us. I saw Ms Sposato struggling off the bus with the lunch
basket which Mitch Mooney and I had forgotten in the
excitement. I grabbed Mitch and we both ran back to help her.
When the three of us walked back to the entrance, Ms Sposato
spied Troy McKenzie with his bottom against the wet window
and she roared!

"Troy McKenzie! Get your bottom off that window - RIGHT
NOW!" Ms Sposato was red in the face and she suddenly got
redder when she remembered that she wasn't in the classroom
back at St Maria Goretti's, but she was in public with normal
people.

Troy McKenzie removed his behind from the window and we
all giggled because it looked like he had wet his pants. Troy
McKenzie didn't care, he just laughed too. Gee I admired him.

Ms Sposato walked over to the ticket window and told the
man that St Maria Goretti's had arrived. I thought I saw him
shudder but it could have been my imagination.

We all had to line up near the door and walk past a man
dressed in a guard's uniform. Mitch Mooney and I put the
basket of lunches in a locker with a sliding roller door and
locked it and gave the key to Ms Sposato. We were ready to
check out the gallery.

Everybody assembled in the front foyer and we all snuck
over to the information counter and took one of every leaflet
which, before we arrived, had been arranged in neat piles
underneath a sign that said "Free Information". Ms Sposato
spoke to the Educational Officers and we stuffed the leaflets
down our school jumpers because we knew Ms Sposato would make
us put them all back if she saw how many we took. Two
Educational Officers came over to speak to all the grade 5's.
While they were telling us the rules of the gallery, I saw Ms
Sposato browsing near the free brochures and to my surprise,
she took one of each and shoved them into her small handbag.

There were heaps of things you couldn't do at the gallery
and as I listened to the Educational Officer called Frank go
through all the rules, I hoped Troy McKenzie was listening
because he was bound to get into trouble in a place like
this. Frank told us that we weren't allowed to touch any of
the artworks. We also weren't allowed to run in the gallery
or eat or carry a big bag because you might steal something.
I wondered if Frank suspected that every grade 5 child's
jumper was already stuffed with stolen brochures.

Frank broke us up into two groups. I was in a group with
Troy McKenzie, Snotty McFee, Bronwyn Bunting, Emma Vigilante,
Mitch Mooney, Jason McWhirter and Sharyn Amott who was the
smartest kid in grade 5. Bronwyn Bunting's mother had to go
in our group because Bronwyn was in the group. Bronwyn
Bunting is the only grade 5 I know that doesn't mind if her
mother comes on an excursion. In fact, I suspect she likes
having her mother there. How immature!

Bronwyn Bunting's mother is weird. She always smiles and
says really positive things to kids and she always explains
things really clearly if anyone ever asks her a question -
definitely not a woman you could trust. I'm not sure why she
doesn't look annoyed and bothered like everybody else's
mother. Respectable mothers ignore children most of the time
and get annoyed easily. It makes kids feel secure. And now
I'd have to put up with Bronwyn Bunting's nice mother all
day. How revolting!

Frank the Guide took us to the Australian section first
and sat us down in front of Fredrick McCubbin's The
Pioneer. It was huge and I wondered how Fredrick McCubbin
could have reached the high bits. Frank explained the three
panels. The first one had a young couple in it with a wagon.
In the second panel, the lady had a baby and was talking to a
man sitting on a log. I liked the last panel best. There was
a man bending over an old grave. Frank the Guide asked us who
we thought was buried there. Bronwyn Bunting put her hand up
nicely and said that the man could have been the baby grown
up and the graves could have been his parents.

Jason McWhirter said that the man could have been burying
his wife or baby. Frank the Guide nodded and then noticed
Troy McKenzie sitting scruffily tugging on his shoelaces.
Frank asked Troy what he thought had happened. Troy McKenzie
looked thoughtfully at the third panel and said, "I reckon
that the son went mad with a chainsaw and chopped both his
parents into tiny pieces and now he's getting rid of the
evidence."

Frank the Guide's face turned a light purple colour but he
did his best to ignore Troy McKenzie's answer and moved us on
to another painting. As we were sitting down in front of the
next painting, Troy McKenzie punched me on the arm and said,
"Frank the Guide is a loser. I'm gunna get `im."

"Troy, remember what Ms Sposato said about misbehaving.
She said that anyone who misbehaves, she would tie to the
ceiling fan and turn them on high."

"Who cares?" Troy McKenzie said bravely.

"That ceiling fan goes really fast," I told him trying to
make him see sense but he wouldn't listen.

"Children, who can tell me the name of this painting?"
said Frank the Guide.

I knew it so I put up my hand and said that the painting
was Shearing the Rams by Tom Roberts. Frank the Guide
seemed pleased and even managed to smile weakly at Troy
McKenzie.

"Who can tell me what they know about this painting?" he
asked and was foolish enough to pick Troy McKenzie whose hand
shot up immediately.

"I've seen a picture just like this before," Troy told
Frank the Guide. "It was in the newspaper - except the
picture was a cartoon and it was called Ramming the Shears,
and the bloke behind the front bloke was ramming the shears
into the front bloke's bum..."

"Oh, oh," spluttered Frank the Guide, "Well thank you
young man." You could tell that Frank the Guide had decided
not to pick Troy to answer any more questions.

Frank the Guide walked us through some other sections and
finally we sat down in front of a huge painting called The
Banquet of Cleopatra. Frank started to tell us about the
picture.

"Giovanni Battista Tiepolo began this painting in 1743 and
finished it the following year," he began. "As you can see,
there are many rich characters in the scene..."

"How rich are they?" Troy McKenzie called out,
interrupting Frank the Guide and making him lose his train of
thought.

"Er, I... I don't know how rich they are, now where was I?
Oh yes, I was going to talk about the dogs. As you can see,
there is a big dog on the floor and there is a tiny dog
sitting on Cleopatra's lap."

Troy McKenzie wasn't going to be silenced. "My pig, Axl
would kill both those stupid dogs," he said and he didn't let
up. When Frank the Guide told us that Cleopatra was about to
drop a priceless pearl into a glass of vinegar and drink it,
Troy McKenzie called out that he'd rather have a Coke.

Bronwyn Bunting's mother finally realised that it was up
to her to try to control Troy McKenzie since she was in
charge of the group. Troy was in the middle of telling Frank
the Guide that the man on the left side of the painting
looked like he was scratching his bottom, when Mrs Bunting
took him firmly by the arm and led him over by the European
portraits.

I edged toward the back of the group to try to listen to
what Bronwyn Bunting's perfect mother would say to Troy
McKenzie.

She began with, "Troy, why are you being so silly and
ruining everybody's enjoyment?"

Troy answered in his smart alec voice, "Because Ms Sposato
said there would be nudes and I wanna see `em."

To her credit Mrs Bunting didn't look shocked, she just
asked Troy which nudes he especially wanted to see. All of a
sudden Troy McKenzie looked embarrassed and didn't answer,
so she asked him again. I had never seen Troy McKenzie lost
for words before - but he was now. It was as if he suddenly
realised that he was talking about naked women with a woman
who - except for her clothes - would have been naked too. He
looked confused.

I heard Bronwyn Bunting's mother tell Troy McKenzie that
if he really wanted to look at nudes, she would
personally take him and find some right then and there and
let Frank the Guide look after the group. I heard Troy say
something about suddenly changing his mind and he walked
rather quickly back to our group and sat down next to me.

"That Mrs Bronwyn's mother is a weirdo!" he said to me and
I quickly agreed.

When Frank the Guide had shown us six artworks, it was
time for us to explore the gallery by ourselves - except of
course for Bronwyn Bunting's mother. Frank had left us with a
warning. He told us that there were guards in every room and
that some of the artworks were protected by individual
alarms. He also told us that we weren't allowed to step over
the white borders near the artworks otherwise the guards
would get cross at us. Our group all nodded seriously. I
wondered to myself who would be the first to get into
trouble.

Mrs Bunting walked us around to the most boring section of
the gallery - the glass section. It had glass cases just full
of glass things. Troy McKenzie got told off by the Glass
Cases Guard for doing a blowfish on one of the cases.

We walked around the section that has all the really old
statues and ornaments from before Jesus was born and boy, did
they look old. Mrs Bunting tried to make us enthusiastic by
saying things like, "Can you imagine that this horse statue
was 1000 years old when Jesus was born?" and I said, "So was
my nanna."

Mrs Bunting looked a bit wounded but I didn't care. She
was a painful woman and she deserved everything she got. She
sniffed a bit but was distracted when Troy McKenzie did
another blowfish on the glass case holding the horse that was
1000 years old when Jesus was born and got told off by the
Old Statues and Ornaments Guard.

We didn't really like looking at the ornaments. We wanted
to see the paintings so Mrs Bunting let us go on the
escalator to the ground floor and have a bit of a wander.
Nicholas Ramsbotthom had some chewy that he had cleverly
hidden on the roof of his mouth. He had sounded like he spoke
with a lisp when we went on the tour and I thought it was
funny because Frank the Guide spoke with a bit of a lisp too
- he must have had his chewy stuck to the roof of his mouth -
just like Nicholas!

Anyway, Nicholas Ramsbotthom took out his chewy and stuck
it on the handrail of the escalator and we all stood at the
bottom waiting for the next person to ride down. There was a
sign explaining the Felton Bequest at the bottom of the
escalator, so we all pretended to read it - except Bronwyn
Bunting and her mother who were really reading it. They
didn't know about the chewy.

We all held our breath as people walked up to the
escalator and then walked past it to look at other things.
Finally a group of old ladies approached the top step. We all
laughed as one particularly silly looking old lady wearing a
daisy hat and long white gloves stuck her hand right in
Nicholas Ramsbotthom's pink chewy. She didn't even notice
until she got to the bottom and tried to lift her gloved hand
from the rail and it made a big stringy pink line. We all
laughed until we cried.

Bronwyn Bunting's mother asked us in a rather suspicious
voice what we were laughing at. Snotty McFee said that we
were laughing at the old lady's daisy hat. Bronwyn Bunting's
mother told us not to be uncharitable and that sometimes old
people got a bit out of touch with the latest fashions and
that one day we would be old and we wouldn't want young
children laughing at us.

Sharyn Amott put up her hand - yes, right in the middle of
the gallery foyer. Mrs Bunting asked her what she wanted and
she said that she needed to go to the toilet. She said the
word "toilet" in a very quiet and respectful voice. Of
course, the minute she said it, everybody said they needed to
go. Ms Sposato called it the "synchronized bladder syndrome".

We all had great fun in the toilets, in fact, some of our
best times at school were in the toilets. At St Maria
Goretti's the boys toilets and the girls toilets are
connected by a shared brick wall. We throw wet toilet paper
at each other and listen for strange noises. Unfortunately,
the gallery toilets weren't connected, but going was a real
experience. The toilets were much cleaner and newer than the
ones at school. The doors were all white and so were the
tiles. They even had those excellent soap dispensers that you
pull the lever and pink soap squirts onto your hand. They
were all empty after we finished with them.

Back in the foyer, we all waited for everyone to emerge
from the gallery toilets. Some kids just couldn't get enough
of strange toilets - they just kept having to go back for
that extra flush. But when Sharyn Amott finally came out of
the toilets looking upset, we all put it down to being the
last to have a go at the soap dispensers and finding them
empty.

Sharyn Amott, the smartest kid in grade 5 didn't usually
look upset and when she continued to look worried, I felt
compelled to go over to her and ask her what was wrong. She
stared at me through her thick jam jar glasses and looked as
if she was deciding whether she could trust me or not. She
must have decided that she couldn't and she said that there
was nothing wrong and wandered into the Great Hall with the
coloured ceilings. Bronwyn Bunting's mother was ridiculously
excited. She even made us all lie on the floor and stare up
at the coloured glass. I must admit that it did make my head
spin a bit. I was concentrating so hard on the patterns that
I didn't immediately recognise the whispery voice in my ear.

"Can I trust you?" it said.

I turned my head and stared straight into a pair of thick
glasses. It was Sharyn Amott.

"Of course, you can trust me," I said.

Sharyn leaned up so close that I could smell the muesli
that she had for breakfast.

"I think the gallery is going to be robbed," she said
calmly.

"Why would you think a silly thing like that?" I asked,
momentarily forgetting that she was the smartest kid in grade
5 and that she was never wrong.

"I overheard a conversation in the toilets," began Sharyn
calmly, "and it lead me to believe that two women were
planning to steal one of the art works."

I didn't know what to do. Sharyn wasn't panicking, but I
was beginning to.

"What did they say?"

"Well," began Sharyn slowly, "I was trying to get some
soap out of the soap dispenser, which didn't seem to be
working when two women began talking down the other end of
the bathroom. They probably didn't even notice I was there."

I thought that it wasn't surprising that people didn't
notice Sharyn Amott. She was short and blond with the second
thickest pair of glasses that I had ever seen in my whole
life.

"One of the women said to the other that she was sick and
tired of having no money and the other said that after today
she wouldn't have to worry,"

"So, that's no reason to suspect them of stealing
anything..."

"Let me finish," she said in a voice that was growing
just a little bit impatient. "The first one said that she
deserved some good fortune and after Harry had left, she was
going to take the weeping woman in her and put it all behind."

"Wow," I said, "it really does sound like they plan to
steal Picasso's Weeping Woman."

"Yes," agreed Sharyn, "that's exactly what I thought!"

"When she said that she was going to put it all behind
her, I bet she meant that she was going to shove Weeping
Woman up her jumper."

"Absolutely," said Sharyn "and I bet that Harry is one of
the gallery guards and she is going to wait until he leaves
the room and she is going to grab the Weeping Woman."

"What are we going to do?" I cried.

"We have to save the painting," said Sharyn firmly.

Sharyn and I talked in whispers and developed a plan.
Sharyn knew what the women looked like and we would have to
wander around until we found them. We planned to follow them
until they tried to steal the painting and then we would
raise the alarm - somehow.

We got up off the floor of the room with the coloured
ceilings and asked Bronwyn Bunting's mother if a few of us
could go on a wander by ourselves. She looked sort of
suspicious but she told us how adults should trust children
and that the children had a responsibility to honour that
trust. We nodded seriously and then shot off around the
corner and put our fingers down our throats and made vomity
gestures.

Sharyn Amott and I stood inconspicuously next to the naked
statue of Circe. We watched everyone who went past and some
people seemed to feel uncomfortable - us watching them
watching Circe. I don't know why.

Troy McKenzie sauntered around the corner and he was
heading straight for Circe. He didn't notice us standing near
by and I heard him say, "Hurly burly, what a girlie! Just
look at those..."

"Troy McKenzie!" It was Bronwyn Bunting's mother. She had
found him although it wasn't really surprising that she knew
where to look.

"Quick," I said, "come with us!"

I grabbed Troy McKenzie's muscley arm and dragged him
around the partition and we headed for the escalators. The
three of us lost Bronwyn Bunting's mother without much effort
and Sharyn Amott and I were forced to explain our mission to
Troy McKenzie.

"I'll bash `em," was his response.

Sharyn Amott explained gently and with great patience that
physical violence wasn't the answer and with our brains we
should be able to out smart the crooks. Troy McKenzie looked
confused and Sharyn Amott quickly corrected herself. With HER
brains, we should be able to out smart the crooks.

"Then can I bash them?" asked Troy causing Sharyn Amott to
utter a really big sigh. She turned her attention to the
passers-by, her thick jam jars reflecting the painting
opposite which happened to be Andy Warhol's Self Portrait.
She looked so funny for that brief moment. The smartest kid
in grade 5 having the bright colours of Andy Warhol shinning
on her glasses.

"There they are!" whispered Sharyn pointing to two very
suspicious women. They both wore floral print knee length
dresses, with sensible shoes and boring perm hairstyles like
my grandmother. They were obviously two despicable criminals
dressed just like ordinary housewives. Luckily we were so
clever that we could see through their disguise.

We scampered around so that we were following them and
they hardly noticed us - except for when I bumped into the
back of one of them. I noticed that Troy McKenzie had already
clenched his fists in anticipation.

We followed them around until we came to the hall with
Picasso's Weeping Woman. We stood a little way off and
watched as the women stood in front of the green and purple
crying lady. We watched them point at it but we couldn't
hear what they were saying - no doubt though, that they were
planning what they would buy with the money they would get
when they sold it.

One of the women looked around suspiciously over her
shoulder. I gave Sharyn Amott a nudge. They were obviously
getting ready to make their move. The other woman took a step
forward. This was our chance.

Troy McKenzie let out a WHOOOP and took a running jump
towards them. He hit the floor, tripped over and slid all the
way over to where the robbers were standing. They weren't
standing for long. Troy bowled them over like pins at a
bowling alley.

Suddenly the most awful wailing sound filled the air. It
was partly the women lying on the floor screaming with Troy
McKenzie lying on top of them and partly the siren that had
been activated when the alarm for Picasso's famous painting
was triggered.

I think we got off pretty lightly considering that Ms
Sposato was really furious at us. After the guards had led us
away, Ms Sposato made us sit in the front foyer until the
rest of the grade 5s had finished their tours. It wasn't
really too bad. We filled our jumpers with more brochures,
made blowfish on the water window and pretended to pick our
noses every time a group of old ladies went past.

It was a really long day and I was almost glad to come
home. After I finished my homework and shoved it into my
bag, I watched Gummi Bears on TV. When it was over, I
thought for a moment and then did something very out of
character - I got out my homework book and I wrote one more
sentence in large capital letters:

IF YOU GO TO THE GALLERY AND SOMEONE SETS OFF THE ALARM -
MAKE SURE IT'S NOT YOU!